Training and Mt Everest

Training and Mt. Everest
Training is a lot like climbing Mt Everest. The process can be long, and you spend way more time below the summit than you actually do at the peak. But you’ve reached the summit, none of that other stuff matters.

For those of you not familiar with my analogy, when you look at the way you train and your expectations of setting Personal Records and accomplishing the goals you have set for yourself, there a few factors that come into play that get you where you want to go. Just like when tackling the highest mountain in the world, first and foremost, you must continually put one foot in front of the other and BE CONSISTENT in your efforts.

Secondly, as you ascent towards the summit, you’ll spend a bit of time in the beginning acclimatizing at base camp. This is where you establish your FOUNDATION OF FUNDAMENTALS and give your body a taste of what you’re about to put it through. Now you are consciously conscious of where you are and how much further you have to go, as well as an idea how much work its going to take to get there.

Once you’ve been accustomed to the lack of oxygen and the extra effort required to accomplish things that were simple at sea level, now set off on your trek. At this stage of the game, you’ve exposed yourself to all the things wrong with movement patterns and started consciously working on the little nuances of IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY of these movements. Right about now, is where you’ll start attempting max lifts and recording workouts for time and volume so you have a GAUGE OF YOUR PROGRESS along the way.

Are ready for the biggest kick in the nuts? After making all that progress up to “Stage 1″, you get make your way back down to Base Camp. Then you’ll head back up to “Stage 1″ for a bit before you press on to “Stage 2″. Then, guess what? Once you get there you get to come back down to “Stage 1″. And so the process goes, until you get the peak, look down at the trail you’ve blazed and get your first look at the world you left behind on your way to the glory of accomplishment. The same principle of ADAPTATION AND ACCOMMODATION applies to your training. As you improve and achieve benchmarks, you’ll scale your intensity (volume, duration, loads, speed, etc…) to let your body and nervous system adjust to their newfound capacity for work and output. After a while, even though the challenge hasn’t disappeared, you’ll become consistent in your performance and you will need to up the intensity to stimulate improvement.

However, let’s not forget good old mother nature. You need to be prepared for the occasional gust of wind, or storm, or worst case an avalanche and have the patience to weather through it on the way up the mountain. If it was easy, everyone would do it. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Blah blah blah! Life doesn’t work like that. SHIT HAPPENS. We get sick, we have kids, we get injured, we move and switch gyms. The variables are endless. Whatever yours are, hopefully you’ve experienced enough gratification in your progress to this point, that when life temporarily gets in the way, it won’t completely derail you. If nothing else, it will just force you to alter your course a bit. You sprain your ankle, well Olympic lifting and most things ballistic are out, so take that time and be productive! Become really efficient with your gymnastics, or more solid with you squats. Then once you’ve healed, you’ve weathered the storm, pick up where you left off and keep going! At the end of the day, ALL THAT MATTERS IS THAT YOU CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD.

Before you know it, after all the bad weather, the setbacks, the inherent ups and downs of the climb, now you’re at top. You spent so much time looking up at your goal along the way, turn around and witness the journey that you just finished. Take pride in the struggle. No one ever made it to the top of the mountain and said it wasn’t worth it. Enjoy the view, you’ve earned it! You wereCONSISTENT. You were PATIENT. You were SMART. You HAD A PLAN. You BUSTED YOUR ASS! This is your reward! Enjoy the view, you EARNED IT!

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Mycal Anders

A competitive athlete his entire life, “Derz” played football at both the Air Force Academy and Texas A&M – Commerce. He fell in love with fitness in college while working in the offseason at the Academy. He was fortunate enough to initially develop his knowledge from Allen Hedrick, M.A., CSCS*D, the head strength and conditioning coach at both the Olympic Training Center and the Air Force Academy.